UNSINKABLE CAYENNE

A seventh grader with free-spirited parents can’t wait to find a real home and friends of her own.

It’s 1985, and Cayenne and her family have traded in their nomadic ways for a small Montana rental and the hope of more income. But money continues to be tight, her parents are fighting, and Cayenne can’t seem to get the right kind of attention from the popular girls at school. When the discovery of the Titanic wreckage leads to a school assignment on the ship’s passengers, Cayenne finds parallels between her life and the social stratification aboard the doomed vessel, which prompts her to consider what she thought she wanted and what she actually needs. This story centers the valuable perspective of a child growing up in a loving family with alternative norms, and it demonstrates respect for young readers with a bittersweet ending that feels authentic to the characters. While Cayenne comes through as flawed but sympathetic, many of the other cast members feel underdeveloped, and the verse format doesn’t allow for sufficient exploration of and connection among the story’s many emotional turns and themes. Vitalis thoughtfully and age-appropriately incorporates Cayenne’s father’s marijuana use, and she discusses the drug in relation to his PTSD in her author’s note. Aside from the repetitive yet ambiguous racial marking of one of Cayenne’s classmates, most characters are white.

An uneven presentation of a worthwhile story.